The performance series by Vlas Kuzma is a fixation on the absence of freedom, stretched across the globe.
The artist works with his own bodily presence as a document, turning it into a mirror of systems where control, violence, and submission become the condition.
In three acts β
ε₯΄ιΆCUFFS
ηΎζθMEDUSA
ζιSLAVE
β Kuzma creates an archaeology of unfreedom.
Each gesture becomes a mark β part of an ongoing state.
These performances form a trilogy in which unfreedom is not tied to a single country, regime, or historical period.
It is everywhere β and the artist captures it through prolonged presence,
where stillness and inner awareness speak louder than the outer noise of revolt.
Unfreedom, embodied through performance, was documented across three continents β in Asia, Europe, and America β
as a universal symptom of structural violence against the human being.
.
ACT /
CUFF
ANTIMΓDITATION
ππ
This act was performed in Eastern Europe, in Moscow β a city marked by repression.
For seven hours, Kuzma stood motionless, his hands held behind his back, as if bound by cuffs.
This position became a bridge between the Stalinist purges β which claimed the lives of his ancestors β and the present structures of persecution.
The gesture collapses past and present into a single continuum of repression.
Totalitarianism is the enemy.
To meditate here is to meet the enemy face to face.
The pose transforms into a duel with power β a refusal to forget, a refusal to submit.
.
Cuffs, 2020. From a series of black-and-white documentary photographs of performance, Moscow, Russia.
Performance duration: 7 hours
This second act was performed in China. The artist appeared in front of CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras installed in public areas, maintaining direct eye contact with the device.
Kuzma directs his gaze into the architecture of control, reactivating the figure of Medusa β not as myth, but as method.
Medusa represents a force that cannot be controlled β presence that does not conform to power. In the myth, she is punished not for what she does, but for what she is. That is why she must be decapitated.
Before the performance, Kuzma was officially informed: filming of military zones could lead to capital punishment. His family would be held responsible for the cost of the execution, including the bullet used.
All documentation of the performance was confiscated by local authorities. None has been returned.
.
ACT //
MEDUSA
ΞΞΞΞΞ₯Ξ£Ξ
ACT ///
Χ’ΧΧ
SLAVE
πππ‘
Performed across borders, this act found its loudest presence in Manhattan, NYC.
The artist takes the most intimate canvas β his own skin β and turns it into packaging. The face, once sacred, now functions as a commodity surface. Itβs functional. Anyone, everyone, can scan him.
In branding his forehead with a QR code, Kuzma stages an end β the end of subjectivity. He is not only performing art but declaring the condition of our age: subjectivity is obsolete. Kuzma has willingly traded his βIβ for an SKU, for the logic of the supermarket.
Certified. Catalogued. Digitized.
Itβs the most democratic degradation imaginable.